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The subject addressed by this work, currently discussed in Europe following an European Commission inquiry, is the evaluation of the possibility to prevent the MAC (Mobile Air Conditioning) use below 18°C and its benefits in terms of CO2 emissions saving. This strategy, while providing an uncertain fuel consumption saving, has to be faced with basic safety and cabin comfort conditions. The OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) may evaluate to address these concerns by controlling the cabin absolute humidity content. In order to maintain safety it should be acceptable to turn the AC on based on other inputs, such as air distribution modes (defrost or floor/defrost), windshield wiper usage, rear defroster usage, etc. FGA (FIAT Group Automobiles) exploited our proprietary prediction tool to assessing the yearly fuel efficiency that can be achieved in real use by means of the testing results of representative vehicles.

Following the development of new technologies in Vehicle Thermal Management aiming to both enhancing the MAC System efficiency and reducing the thermal load to be managed, a prediction tool based on the AMEsim platform was developed at Advanced PD EMEA. This tool is dedicated to predict the effect of the implementation of sensors monitoring both the relative humidity and the carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration (taking into account passengers' generated moisture and CO2). This model implemented with the usual comfort inputs (CO2 and RH acceptable ranges) considers the system variables influencing the comfort and predicts the increase of both RH and CO2 concentration in the cabin compartment in any driving cycle depending on the number of occupants.

This paper deals with the application of a secondary cooling circuit to a turbocharged engine for a segment C car. The secondary coolant loop, working at low temperature, has been used to cool down the charge air by means of a coolant-to-air exchanger and as hot source of the HVAC circuit by means of a coolant-to-refrigerant condenser. The system is able to ensure both a constant air temperature at engine inlet, with smaller variations for different vehicle working conditions if compared to the normal production equipment, and a lower pressure at the condenser of the HVAC system, thus leading to a reduction in the fuel consumption of the vehicle. Starting from experimental measurements on MVEG cycle, an estimation of the fuel consumption reduction of the system in real use has been done using an LCCP tool FGA did develop and it is here presented.